


Tortured Screams Keep Haunting Me (This is Madness)

by LostandLonelyBirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Blood and Gore, Child Murder, Court of Owls, Destiny, Dick Grayson has some memories, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gray Son of Gotham, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insanity, Night of the Owls, but not all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 14:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20098984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/LostandLonelyBirds
Summary: He is the Gray Son of Gotham, a delivered promise of retribution and vengeance for the city.He is the Talon, a shadowed ghost of blood and fear and silence for the Court.He is the Court, ruling Gotham from his shadowed perch.Dick Grayson is gone, leaving a reanimated husk with his face.Nothing can save him, no one can save him.Not even Damian.





	Tortured Screams Keep Haunting Me (This is Madness)

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm sitting in this empty room all alone  
I can hear nothing but their screaming souls  
Souls of madness but, not like me  
I can see their innocence
> 
> Unlike the monster I am  
That no one can see  
And what I have become,  
What I have done to some  
Someone like me  
That no one can see
> 
> a psychopath in the dark."
> 
> -Murder Madness

“_Do you ever wonder _

_ what it’s like _

_ being hunted in the dark?”_

He didn’t remember much from before.

Not even his name.

But that was how the Court wanted it,

Wanted him.

He didn’t need to know his name to kill,

He didn’t need to know his past to serve.

Fruitless knowledge – useless to the _Gray Son _of Gotham, the **_Talon_**_._

_“Speak not_

_ A whispered word of them,_

_ Or they’ll send the Talon_

_ For your head.”_

Even though he didn’t know much, he knew bits and pieces-

(_small allowances the court gave, fragments and shards of who he was to who he <strike>is</strike> was, like a gift or reward for each kill_)

-which was more than could be said for the talons left over from when he’d offed the previous Talon.

_But what a scene that had been, his great-great-grandfather’s corpse at his feet, innards painting the walls a gorgeous red, **shredded**, **pulverized**, DEAD. And Talon had done it - torn William Cobb’s smug face apart with his suit’s claws, ripped his limbs off, one by one, slow enough to be felt, to hurt. Enough for the serum to heal him bit by bit before the next limb came off, enough for his mentor to feel nothing but relief as Talon set his head on fire, ashes to be cast to the wind._

Cobb had attempted to rally the talons to defend him, and many had (‘_unsuccessfully,’ Talon thought with a smirk_). They’d been no match for the _true _Talon, trained by many masters-

(_Half orange, half black… pain… anger…uncontrollable rage and frustration… “If you want your friends to live, --------, I’d suggest you hold your tongue.”_)

(_Black capes and cowls… warmth… grief… respect… betrayal…love… “I do it so no one else will lose their loved ones, I’m ------- and you’re ------ so we can save this city.”_)

He killed more than he let live, deaths only permitted by the Court to test his limits, his loyalty.

Compassion wasn’t wanted nor needed, not even among their ranks, their talons.

So, Talon killed where he was allowed without remorse, painting the black and gold **_red red red…_**

_And the talons that were almost human at times, still painfully trusting despite their circumstances, suffered. Betrayal colored their cold, dead eyes - shocked that he would do this, that the Court would allow this. His icy blue eyes shone an unnatural gold as he ripped them apart, one undead head at a time. Blood splatters and entrails decorated the delicate white marble of the Court’s maze, the only mark of what he’d done._

He remembers resisting killing, initially-

_Unheard pleas, for -----, for ------, for anyone. Being broken down, dehumanized, cut apart._

_Injections and cutting and regenerations, seeing his own heart pulled from his chest,_

_Watching his eyes transition from blue to gold to somewhere in between,_

_Forgetting his name piece by piece, forgetting other things piece by piece._

_Blue veins and pain pain **pain**, but the pain went away when he hurt who he was told to,_

_Even though he didn’t want to, but pain pain pain._

_It was cold and lonely, painful numbness, he only was iced once before he killed a man the Court brought him._

_“Tony Zucco, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”_

_And he died died died, painting Talon’s face a pretty red as he tore into the man._

_And he wanted to hurt hurt hurt the way he’d been hurt,_

_So he did._

\- but he doesn’t care anymore.

He _likes _killing,

He _likes _the warm final rush of blood that flows from the cooling corpse,

He _likes _the messy splatter decorating his pale features,

But above all he _likes _tasting the fear of his target as his claws dug into them, cut into them,

Painfully, perfectly.

The closest his victims got to perfection was death, death _was _perfection (_<strike>it was perfection for him too</strike>_).

Perfectly frozen, perfectly painted, perfectly _quiet_.

Like Talon, (_unlike_ \----).

He was what the night feared; what _Batman _feared.

Whoever he’d been before the Court (_‘there is nothing but the Court,’ his mind hisses, and he hurts when he thinks otherwise, ‘You are nothing without the Court.’_) wasn’t who he was now.

He **is **the Gray Son of Gotham, a delivered promise of retribution and vengeance for the city.

He **is **the Talon, a shadowed ghost of blood and fear and silence for the Court.

He **is **the Court, ruling Gotham from his shadowed perch.

But there are times where he isn’t.

Times his head hurts to think about,

Times where he feels water in his eyes and his chest feels _hot hot hot_,

Times where he feels like he’s burning and claws at his chest until it’s raw and bleeding and words are carved into his flesh.

_But Talon cannot read these words, they blur in his mind, crimson letters swirling and fuzzing and _

_spinning in tandem as he screams and screams and screams._

Talon doesn’t know who he is in these moments; doesn’t know why he feels like he’s burning and suffocating and dying when he _can’t _die.

_Talon can’t die, but ---- can. ---- can die die die so Talon screams and screams, falling to his knees and clutching his head as the pain hits._

Talon doesn’t know so he kills more, fighting bile and panic and _shame _as he paints Gotham’s disobedient citizens _red red red _for the Court.

Talon doesn’t know so he hunts the Court’s enemy, the Batman, finding him hidden beneath Wayne Manor in a cave of bats.

Talon doesn’t know so he says:

“Damian Wayne, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

He kills the lights, deflecting the child’s bat-shaped projectiles as he circles him. He lets the child exhaust himself, launching attack after attack that Talon deflects with ease.

He waits for the child to rip the mask off his head, eyes growing wide as he whispers a name like a prayer, awe and wonder and hope bleeding into his voice.

“Grayson?”

Talon surges forward as the child drops his sword, attacking with a ferocity he doesn’t understand, that the _child _doesn’t understand.

The child falls, bleeding heavily (‘_red and red and red,’ he thinks. But it isn’t delight he feels_) with trust filled eyes.

“Don’t.”

This child isn’t the first to beg, but he’s the first to make it sound like a request, filled with forgiveness and trust and things that Talon doesn’t understand (_but things that ---- does_).

Talon hesitates, but thoughts of the cold awaiting him if he fails stir him to action and he directs his dagger to the child’s gut.

The child does not break eye contact as the crimson leaks onto Talon’s gloves.

And something in him finds it hysterical, his blades and claws coated in the child’s blood, _red _coloring his skin, a corpse with a trusting face…

So, he laughs a broken, empty sound as his skin burns and not-Talon screams.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a Talon fic for awhile and it just turned out very angsty. I might continue this one if there's interest since I have a few ideas for it but I'm not positive. I hope you guys liked it!


End file.
